. . . according to my dad's friends. Apparently everyone he works with thinks I have spectacular taste in music, based on what he's told them. They think it's great that I listen to older music like the Beatles and Janis Joplin. It's gotten to the point where these guys are lending me their iPods for me to pick out music for them. It's pretty cool, actually. And to me it's just more proof that I was born in the wrong damn decade. Oh well, I have to go put music on yet another iPod. :-)

Seriously. Has there ever been that much awesomeness ? Correct answer: hell no!

I liked the Beatles for most of my life. Both of my parents are fans, and actually had Here, There, Everywhere played at their wedding, so I heard a lot of it growing up.

Then I saw the movie Across the Universe. I don't care what some people say, that movie was fuckin' awesome. I rented it, watched it, then rushed out and bought the two-disc special edition. I've probably seen it 20+ times since then . . . which was less than a month ago.

Anyhow, that movie kinda slammed into me like "LISTEN TO THESE LYRICS, THEY'RE GENIUS!" and I agreed. I dug out my dad's Beatles CDs and ripped them onto my computer and iPod, then borrowed a million others from the library (still waiting on the White Album) and it's like a friggin drug. Pretty much all I listen to lately. The Anthologies are awesome; seriously, listen to And Your Bird Can Sing on Anthology 2. They just crack up for no damn reason through the whole song. It makes me beyond happy. And Live at the BBC is spectacular.

I was seriously born in the wrong decade.

The problem is that I keep hearing new songs that just fit, and some songs stop fitting for whatever reason. I may just post the absolute staples and work from there.

Hopefully I'll have it up sometime this week. *crosses fingers*

Update: It's been posted, with around 50 songs after I cut about 75%. I may add more later.

So I just joined up and am in the process of making my first playlist. It's one of the hardest things I've ever done, making a playlist in memory of a friend who died of a drug overdose. He was only 18. He died over a year ago, and it's less painful to remember him now than when he first died, but listening to all of these songs is making me remember everything.

I can't stop thinking of all the things I should have told him, wondering if anything I might have done would have saved him. People keep saying that nothing we did could stop it, but that doesn't make sense. The drugs changed him so much in the last months of his life that most of his friends abandoned him; he was just so angry and, well, unlikable. He pushed us away. Losing his friends caused him to become even more depressed and use even more drugs. Would he really still have died if we had stuck it out? If we had intervened? If I myself had held on to him tighter? Fought for him? Told him the one thing I still have trouble saying out loud? What if we had begged? Cried? Threatened him? Yelled? Held him down until he listened to reason? What if the only thing we did differently was to make sure he was still going to therapy?

You can't tell me that none of that would have stopped him.

I only hope my playlist will bring some solace to anyone else who has lost a friend and/or lover. Like me.